


hey, i dont know you, but we were totally deeply in love and living happily ever after in an alternate universe or something

by softfirbolg



Category: Homestuck
Genre: Based on The Fault in Our Stars, Cancer, Catharsis, How Do I Tag, I Made Myself Cry, Leukemia, M/M, Mentions of Cancer, Someone's gonna die at the end lol, There are other characters but like not really, not really based on tfios but like whateve, rated teen and up for adult language :P
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-05-24
Updated: 2019-05-24
Packaged: 2020-03-13 22:05:07
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,252
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18949558
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/softfirbolg/pseuds/softfirbolg
Summary: Karkat's in the hospital getting treatment for his cancer.He's been cursed with a room with two beds, and his roommate is hooked up to a bunch of machines to keep him breathing and spent his first week unconscious.But fuck it, if the universe decides he needs a friend, it's gonna give him a goddamn friend.-----Your name is Dave Strider, your lungs are full of liquid, and your roommate looks like if a snowflake got hit by a truck. But you're lonely, and so is he.





	hey, i dont know you, but we were totally deeply in love and living happily ever after in an alternate universe or something

**Author's Note:**

> For Simon: You stupid, ugly ass, bug-eyed freak of nature.  
> You were wonderful, and I hope you’re happy, wherever you are.
> 
> A/N: idk SHIT abt hospitals or whatnot, but this is, a different kind of necessary catharsis, so like, please be nice to me. k, thanks, lov u, bye!

Karkat Vantas was sixteen and had yet to accomplish anything culturally significant in the eyes of fantasy teenage rebellion movie iconography. Not prom king, but not stuffed into any lockers. Not star quarterback, but not chess team material either.  
It may or may not have helped that he had been in-and-out of hospitals since middle school.  
It may or may not be the crushing realization of your world crashing down around you.  
It may or may not have helped that he had thought himself a worthless, waste of space, cancer upon his family’s bloodline since middle school, since he found out the real reason his parents divorced.  
Oh, what sweet, sweet irony.

At present, the room he was in had two beds separated by a curtain. Conventional for a hospital, but not for dying teenagers. Which meant he was probably okay this time. Or that they had really just ran out of room to give him a private room to die in, because of all the other kids who went to Disneyland for their Wish like inbred pieces of shit with stable home lives.  
Geez, he really needed to make some friends so he wasn’t just… Mad. All the time.

\-----

Your name is Dave Strider and, good news, your lungs are full of liquid!  
Well, not anymore, but they were, which is gross. You’ve just regained consciousness in a hospital room with another bed in it. Which is… Really fucked up. Assflash, newsholes, don’t put dying people in rooms with other people. Imagine the animosity of being in a fucking revolving theme park ride with people who will probably live and get to leave in a few days while your thyroids deep fry themselves.  
Well, it’s not all too bad. You’re roommate looks like he’s about five pounds in the dead of winter, has pale skin and hair that suggest albinism and malnutrition predating the cancer, and hair that looks like its been cut short but has since decided to do its own thing. The kind of hair you get four months into the hair of someone who gets their hair cut once a year, and it’s shaving their head. Very Snufkin-esque. Wild man.  
Wild man (or, not? The implication that he only gets a haircut once a year was just an inference. Maybe he just shaves his head every 4 months, and is due in a few days.) (Stupid, stupid. Maybe he has cancer, since he’s in the fucking cancer wing of the cancer children’s hospital for kids with cancer.) seems to have a perma-scowl on his face. He doesn’t seem mean-natured, but from the glimpse you saw of him through a crack in the curtains, his pale eyebrows were wrinkled up like he was deep in thought, as his hands fidgeted with tube stuck inside of his arm. Not pulling at it, but like he had to scratch an itch but didn’t want to scratch so hard as to peel the scabs nearby. Or, you guess, pull out the tube stuck in your arm. Analogy unnecessary.  
\-----  
Karkat’s roommate had all his hair in tact.  
...Bastard.

That’s really shitty to say, but it’s the only thing he knew about them. He spotted a splash of silky, black hair resting on the pillow before a woman in Hello Kitty scrubs grabbed the curtain and tugged it so that the rings were flat against the wall. He didn’t mind the privacy, but there was a certain hostility about keeping the two of them separated, like either of them had something contagious and worse then what the other was dealing with. Also, he had been given the wall side of the room, which sucked. He would’ve liked to look outside more so then the kid who was unconscious for a week.  
Was it weird to wonder what kind of cancer your roommate had? Probably.  
Did that stop Karkat from wondering why one side of the room was a lot louder then the other, full of breathy machines? Definitely not.  
He suspected lung cancer, because a few of his roommate’s visitors throughout the time since he had woken up brought in a strong stench of cigarettes, but… Karkat wasn’t sure if that was possible from second-hand smoke. And, this was the children’s hospital, which meant their cancer has been around since for a while, and you really hope he haven’t been smoking since his youth.  
Whatever. Fine. Shut up. What else can he think about? Karkat’s roommate has had quite a few groups of notable visitors over the course of the week he'd been awake.  
First: A well dressed light-skinned Afro-Latino (Latina?) woman with a mess of light-brown (blondish) curls, bringing with her a teen age girl with close-cut hair and dressed in all black (fitting, it being the middle of November. Also fitting for culturally significant, funeral-related reasons, but, digression.) and a much smaller girl with more of that same, light brown (blondish) hair, this time in semi-need braids, and wearing a floral cat ear headband. Their appearance screamed contrasting opinions and sibling rivalry, but their actual demeanor was pleasant and polite. The little girl spoke in depth about something Karkat figured was a science fair, before the older girl reminded her of your existence and told her to be quiet. They stayed well past visiting hours, but those don’t really exist here.  
Their mother gave off a smell of vodka, and her eyes spoke more of her stress then she was showing, but she noticed you watching as they walked past, offering a polite smile.  
It hurt.  
Second: A man with short-cut hair and a suit like a washed-up politician. He had a pair of sunglasses tucked into his coat pocket, and he had the aura of someone who hadn't been sleeping well, since, forever. He brought with him another small child (no teenager, so probably family, not friend.) with brown hair that stood up every which way. The little boy practically jumped onto the bed, probably into a hug. They also stayed several hours longer than they should have. This time, you were smart enough to pretend to be asleep as they left.  
(At this point, you had seen your roommates face. His hair was shaggy and black, like he hadn't cut it for fear of not being able to grow it back. He had light brown eyes, and when the two of you made eye contact he smiled softly. You turned away with a frown.)  
Third: A gaggle of teenagers in school uniforms, and one woman who looked exhausted chaperoning all of them. They brought about a billion assorted flowers, toys, and cards. You pretended to be asleep the entire time. It was hard.  
\-----  
Your roommate didn't get any visitors, not a single card or flower or even a stuffed bear were brought to him. You know, because about 30 were brought to you, and you were feeling guiltier by the minute.  
You also know because you got up to piss (by yourself! For the first time in quite a while! Success!) and saw his side of the room, which, in contrast to yours, looked like it was him who has only been in here for a week or so. 

Something in the art of being a dying kid -something in the art of being a kid,- is that we seem to die at rate significantly faster than other people. Physically, mentally, and socially.  
You quietly moved a stuffed bear from one bed to the other, and went back to sleep.

**Author's Note:**

> Check out the spoken word poem, "The Crickets Have Arthritis" by Shane Koyczan.  
> Check out the song "Atlantis" by Seafret  
> Also, please comment! I love interacting with other people.


End file.
